Have you been watching … The Walking Dead?

Some questioned whether The Walking Dead could live up to expectations. But this zombie show has more than delivered

The cast of The Walking Dead. Photograph: PR

We might have seen small pockets of the walking dead on television over the years, but they've never had the easy mass teen appeal of vampires. A zombie teen heart-throb, for instance, just sounds messy. Imagine the bits that would fall off. And as for the smell …

But unlike with vampires and werewolves, zombie stories aren't really about zombies at all – they're about the survivors, the living, the soon-to-be dead. And two thirds of the way into The Walking Dead on FX the title of the show is becoming more ambiguous each week, with the living apparently just biding their time.

Lots of people questioned what kind of show The Walking Dead was going to be. Would it stick to the comics? Would it shrink from the necessary gore and violence? Would Andrew Lincoln just be Egg in a cowboy hat? Such queries were answered a mere four minutes into the first episode when Lincoln's Officer Grimes blew the young zombie girl's brains out at the crossroads.

But while the opener stuck closely to the source material, subsequent episodes have shown that the comic is more a launchpad than a bible. Elements from the comics – such as the characters draping themselves in zombie guts or the undead chowing down on a deer – are smattered throughout the show, but the story seems to be heading in a slightly different direction. (For instance: without getting too spoilerific, isn't there a major location from the comics that the action should have been relocated to by now?)

I've particularly been enjoying the wide-open spaces and threatening quiet employed by The Walking Dead, and the atmosphere and mood of the piece have been great. Frank Darabont insisted on shooting on film; he also wanted to make the show in black and white but the risk of it being mistaken for something old and thus ignored by channel hoppers was too great – a move which gives it a softer look than many TV shows. Bear McCreary's score is subtle and effective, a far cry from his more bombastic and continually impressive work on Battlestar Galactica.

AMC, the US network behind The Walking Dead is hardly monied - their biggest show Mad Men basically using only two major sets: the office and Draper's home. But zombie stories have made economic sense ever since George A Romero's The Night Of The Living Dead, which left audiences fearing a global outbreak of zombies despite the action never leaving the one small farmhouse. The Walking Dead has done similar great work creating its own seamless, post-apocalyptic world out of very little.

The acting has also been very effective. Criticisms of the comic have often focused on its dialogue and characters. There is no shame in using archetypes in such a story: in fact they are pretty much a necessity in order to cover the different angles. But while racist redneck Merle Dixon could have seemed more of a plot device than a person, what made him fun and effective was having him played by the great Michael Rooker. Lincoln has also been a winner. He may not look as magnificent in a Stetson as Timothy Olyphant in Justified but he does inhabit his character perfectly, bringing no baggage from his previous work, no Egg on his face. Lennie James too, despite only appearing in the first episode so far, has made a great impression.

So, have you been watching The Walking Dead? And if so, how do you think it's been shaping up?